Get the list building software. Then get in there and take a look around. They have tutorials to teach you everything from beginning to end, like how to set up and create your first list. I found this really helpful.

When I did this, I just started.

I didn’t have any background in online marketing. I had no prior knowledge of these kinds of tools. It’s something that I started learning about. I realized that list building and email marketing might be important for my business. I was right.

I just got in there and got started.

I signed up for the free AWeber trial. I checked out the tutorials and followed them. I said, “Here is step one. Let me watch the video on how to do that.” If I can do that, you can do that, too.

I had no prior online marketing experience. I just got in there and started.

It’s never too late or too soon to start list building.

If you have a brand-new business and the only people who know about it are your mom and your best friend, that’s okay. You can still start creating your list now. Even if the first people to sign up for your list are your mom and that best friend of yours, it’s still a place to start. When I started my list, my mom and friends signed up. It’s okay. It will get you into the groove of having a list and communicating with them.

On the flip side, if you’ve been running your business for 1, 5 or 10 years and you haven’t started a list yet, don’t beat yourself up and say, “I should have done this by now.” I hear that from people sometimes. That’s okay. What’s done is done. Start today. If you already have existing clients, ask them if you have their permission to add them to your list.

It doesn’t matter where you are. If you’ve just started your business or if you’ve been at it for a while, you can start list building at any time.

Can you start a list if you don’t have a free offer?

I feel that having a free offer is a great way to entice people to want to sign up for your list. You create a great free offer that speaks to your target market. Then they sign up to get on your list, get the free offer, and continue to hear from you.

If you don’t have one yet and you want to get moving with list building, then go for it. You can still create an optin box where people can sign up with their name and email address. Mention that they can sign up for news and tips about their industry. Then you can create your free offer later and add it.

Don’t let it stop you if you don’t have that free offer yet. If all you can do right now is create the optin box and put it out there, then go ahead and do that.

Let the brainstorming begin.

Another way that you can get started is to brainstorm the type of content that your target market would be interested in hearing and learning about. It should be related to things that you know how to do and the services that you offer in your virtual assistant business.

Just start brainstorming. I’m not asking you to write loads and loads of content right now. I’m just asking you to make some notes. What topics would they be interested in that you know about? What are your services? What can you teach them about those things? What can you give them tips on or inform them of, that relates to the services that you provide?

Just start making that list. Jot some things down.

Progress, not perfection.

Please remember that it doesn’t need to be perfect. If you’re in any of my coaching programs, you’ll hear me say this. Done is better than perfect. Just get it out there. People are waiting to hear from you. They need to hear what you have to say in the way that you say it. They need the services that you provide in the way that you provide them. Just get it out there. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can tweak things as you go. This goes for your website, your services, and building this list.

Take a step. Take some action that will build forward momentum. You can always tweak and learn as you go.

That’s my advice for you today. Just get started.

Get support to start your list today!

If you’re ready to do this list building thing for yourself, but you feel that you need support, I would love for you to join us in the 7-Day List Building Challenge. It’s an affordable way to get started with list building. You get one of my products for free that teaches you, step by step, how to go through this process of building your list, creating a free offer and keeping in touch with that list. We also actively take these steps in the challenge. You learn about a step. Then you come into your private Facebook group and tell us, “Here is what I’m working on right now. Can I get feedback?”

You’re not doing it alone. You’re not staying stuck. You’re getting the support that you need.

What makes list building so great for virtual assistants? It’s a fabulous marketing tool for building the know, like and trust factor, and for turning interested people into clients for your VA business.

Find out all the details in this video (or read the transcript below):

Full transcript:

It’s Alicia here at New VA Advice. I’m stopping in with some tips and advice about list building. I want to cover why you should consider building a list.

What is list building and email marketing?

It means that people are voluntarily giving you their email address and information, so that you can then contact them via email. You would use some type of list building software.

A person would enter their name and email address to get more information from you. That is saved in your system. Then you can email them with tips and information. That’s the idea. They are giving you permission to show up in their inbox.

Why consider list building as a marketing tool?

First, email marketing is very much alive and well. When people email their list, they can make money off that list. You can turn those people into clients. This goes for a number of industries. It does work for the virtual assistant industry as well. I am an example of that. It’s one of the marketing methods that I used to build my VA business. It’s something that I still use now to build my coaching business at New VA Advice. I do know other virtual assistants who have used it successfully to get clients into their business. This still works well for people.

Is email marketing salesy?

Email marketing doesn’t have to be sleazy or salesy. It doesn’t have to take up much of your time. It doesn’t need to be inauthentic. You can do this in a natural way that fits in with what you do for clients and how you like to create content to put out there. It’s the special way that you connect with people. You can be yourself and be more natural. You can do that. This is how I’ve used email marketing and list building. This is how I teach people to do it.

You don’t own Facebook.

You always hear about Facebook changing their algorithm. Everyone gets worried. People say, “No one is seeing my Facebook business page. What am I going to do?” If Facebook changes their algorithm or closes down tomorrow, if you have your own list, then that’s okay. You don’t own the information on Facebook. It’s not yours. It’s theirs. You may be making connections with people on Facebook. Maybe you run a group or you’re in a group. You have contacts on your page. If they shut down, that’s not yours. It’s not your information. But if you get them on your list, you own that list. It is yours. No one can take that away from you. It wouldn’t matter what happens in social media or what changes might occur. You have your own list. Yes, you can use social media to promote and get people on your list. That’s a great idea to do it that way. The list is yours. You own it.

Stay top of mind.

Another reason to consider list building is that it helps you to stay top of mind. I know you’re probably thinking that there are other VAs who do what you do. No one will do it exactly like you. No one has your backstory and experience. No one offer with the exact same services with the exact same market and will execute things the exact same way. No one is exactly like you. Showing up in their inbox will keep you top of mind. You won’t have to worry so much about who else is out there that does what you do. These people are on your list. You’re stopping in their inbox and staying in their brain.

People won’t forget about your website.

This is also helpful if you’ve spent a lot of time creating a website. You get it up and live, and you hear nothing. You see that people are stopping by, but no one is filling out your contact form or reaching out to you for your services. People need time to get to know, like and trust you. Give them a great free reason to sign up for your list while they’re visiting your site. Then they won’t go away and forget you. Without that, they could visit your site and get distracted. They might leave. They might think, “I don’t need this right now, but I might in the future. I’ll try to remember her site for later.” They won’t have to try and remember your site for later if they sign up for your list. Then you’re visiting their inbox. You’re staying top of mind all the time.

Show them you’re the expert.

It’s also going to help show them that you know how to perform the services that you offer. You’ll be talking about those things when you email your list. When you do so, it will prove that you know what you’re talking about. It will help to build that know, like and trust factor.

Warm up cold leads.

Let’s say that someone visits your website. They’d like to work with you in the future, but they don’t need your service right now. If they’re on your list, they will remember you when they do need you. This has happened for me. People have been on my list for 6 months. All of a sudden, I will get an email that says, “Hey, you emailed about such-and-such. I’ve been following you for a while. I’m finally ready now. I really need your help with X. Can we talk about it?” This is no longer a cold lead. You’re not making cold calls or cold emails to someone. This is someone who has said that they’re interested in what you have to offer. They want to know more about you, and what you know. They might not need your services right now, but if they stay on your list and you keep in contact with your list, they could become a client down the road. This has happened for me in my business before.

Keep communicating.

You’ve probably heard in marketing that it takes people seven to nine touches before you make a sale. In other words, they need to have contact with you several times before that know, like and trust factor sinks in. Then they want to work with you. Being able to communicate with them through your list is a great way to stay top of mind and get those touches in, so that they eventually become clients.

Hopefully this gives you some reasons why you should consider list building as part of your marketing efforts. It doesn’t have to be sleazy or salesy. It doesn’t have to be all-consuming of your time.

You should come up with a marketing plan that makes the most sense for you and your business based on:

The services that you offer

The time you have available

The type of clients that you want to reach

How they will best be reached

Very often, email marketing and list building will fit into that plan. You just have to know how to do it.

We are going to do this together. Instead of just reading information or trying DIY, I’m there helping you through it. We’re going to touch on certain points about list building.

We’ll focus on creating your free offer, because it’s a great way to get people on your list. I know that part stumps a lot of people. We’re going to work on your free offer together.

We’ll talk about how to get traffic to the list. Then we’ll talk about what to email your list. You will get action steps. You will get videos with me explaining how to execute each part. Then you get to check in with our private Facebook group. That’s your accountability, but also a place to ask questions if you get stuck.

I received some questions about the 7-Day List Building Challenge and how it works.

If you’re not familiar with it, you can check out this post where I explain what the challenge is all about.

Otherwise, on to the questions!

Find out all the details in this video (or read the transcript below):

Full transcript:

It’s Alicia here at New VA Advice. I was asked some really good questions about the 7-Day List Building Challenge. I thought I’d list them for you here along with my answers.

What type of software do you need for list building?

We will go over that in the 7-Day List Building Challenge. Yes, you do need something. In the challenge, you’ll see that I suggest AWeber. (That’s my referral link.) That’s what I use. I love it. There are a lot of other options out there. Some people start out with MailChimp because it’s free. The things that you can do in AWeber are a lot more beneficial, but start with where you’re at. If that’s all you can do right now, that’s fine.

What I discuss in the course is AWeber. If there’s another brand of software that you choose to use, then go right ahead. You will need something. You need some kind of software to house the email addresses and allow you to email from there and keep it legal as far as spam laws.

This is a big part of what we’re going to do in the 7-Day List Building Challenge. A lot of time is going to be spent on this “free offer” concept. I suggest that you think of the services that you offer to the market that you want to serve. Break that down into some pain points. What pain points do you solve with the services that you offer?

Pick just one of those. Give them something good that they can grab onto and resolve that one pain point. Create a free offer around that.

As far as how you deliver that, it can be a number of different ways. We’ll get into that in the challenge. You can write an ebook. You can have a checklist or a template. You can make a video or a how-to series.

That’s why something like this challenge is really good. If you’re not sure what’s going to work best for you and your market, then you can come into the challenge and get feedback. We’ll talk specifically about your business versus something general. Being more specific works better. Choose one problem that your market has, and give them an action step that they can take to alleviate that problem in your free offer. Then you have a call to action and follow up with them so that they will want to work with you.

Will you walk us through how to create our free offer?

Yes. As I said, we’re going to spend a good bit of time on that. We’re going to talk about how to figure out the one that’s best for you and the medium that you’ll use to share it. It could be an ebook, a checklist or a video. You can get feedback on your offer as you’re creating it, right there in the challenge.

How do you make your email different so that it stands out?

I mentioned that you’re creating a free offer and building your list. This means that you’re going to be emailing the people on the list. How do you make your emails stand out from everyone else’s? Our inboxes are full. People are busy.

When you sign up for the challenge, you’ll get my Grow Your Client Base List Building ebook for free. There is a section in there about writing catchy subject lines to get people’s attention and make them want to open them. You get that product for free when you sign up for the 7-Day List Building Challenge. It gives you some ideas, sample headlines, and tools to help.

What you want to avoid is using a subject line like, “Latest blog post,” or “Update from my business.” That’s kind of boring and generic. There’s nothing in there that really entices you to want to open up that email and see what’s inside. We can cover some of that in the List Building Challenge. When you sign up, you get Grow Your Client Base for free. In that ebook, I give all of the details of how I used list building to grow my client base.

I hope that answers your questions. If you have any others, feel free to leave a comment.

Get all the details in this video here (or read the transcript below):

Full transcript:

It’s Alicia here at New VA Advice.

If you are scrambling for clients…

If you have not found your first one…

If you’re not sure where to find your next one…

Maybe you had a good one and they left for whatever reason. You know you need another client and you say to yourself, “I haven’t been consistently marketing so I don’t know where this person is going to come from. Now what do I do?”

If you’ve said yes to any of the above, this message is for you.

I’ve previously mentioned my “secret weapon” when it comes to marketing. It’s one of the methods that helped me tremendously to build a client base for my VA business.

That is list building.

When you hear “list building,” you might think a lot of things. Let me dispel some myths for you right away.

There are some lies that we tell ourselves when it comes to list building. Things like:

“To have an email list, I have to write stuff. I’m not a writer.”

That’s bull. You can do it without being a writer.

“To have a list, I need to have a website first.”

That’s bull. Yes, it’s great to have a VA website at some point, but that’s not what this is about. You can have a list without having a website.

“It’s too hard. No one is going to sign up. It doesn’t really work.”

I’m here to tell you that email marketing is alive and well. You can ask anyone in almost any industry that you find online. You’ll find people who tell you that they email their list and they make sales from that list. Those people on their list turn into clients.

If this sounds interesting to you and you want to know how you can do this for yourself and your VA business, then keep reading. Maybe you want to know how to have this pipeline of potential clients coming in, people who want to hear from you.

They want to know what you’re doing. They want to work with you. They might even want to tell other people about you.

We are going to work on it together. I’m going to teach you the strategies that I’ve used. They are all also in the Grow Your Client Base ebook that I wrote. It tells you exactly how I did it. It explains how you start from the beginning, make a free offer, get traffic to it and what to write to your list afterwards. All of that is in the ebook. But you get it for free in the challenge.

The challenge is only $19. I want you to have some skin in the game so that you take it seriously and take action. It’s like a lot of my other challenges. You get a private Facebook group. I record videos for you every day and give you great content that will help you build this list of yours.

Then you come in and take action. I’ll give you a thread in the Facebook group. You can come in and tell me what you did, what questions you have, and get feedback. You get the Grow Your Client Base ebook for free. You have all the tools, and you have the support from myself and the other challengers.

If you already have a free offer but you’d like to tweak it or get feedback on it, the challenge is a great place to do that.

Wouldn’t it be nice to stop scrambling and wondering where your next client will come from?

Instead, you’ll have this really great list. I will teach you how to create your free offer and get people to want to sign up for your list. We’ll also cover what to email those people afterwards. That’s all happening in the 7-Day List Building Challenge. Join us!

Creating a free offer doesn’t have to be hard and time consuming. I share my best tips with you on this.

And writing to your list doesn’t have to take up all of your time. You just have to commit, and know what your audience wants to hear. I give you TONS of ideas on what to write about so you never feel stuck.

And I also share all the technical stuff with you, like how to use AWeber as list management software as well as how to get your optin onto your WordPress website.

So, if you’ve been thinking about creating a free offer and using list building as a marketing strategy, but you just weren’t sure how to get started, get Grow Your Client Base.

List building is an effective marketing strategy for reaching more prospects and bringing new clients into your virtual assistant business. We’ve talked about that in detail in this article and this video.

Today’s post is a guest post from my friend Stacey Myers. She’s come out with a fabulous new book called Build Your List with 30 Daily Doables. In order to get the word out about this valuable list-building resource, Stacey is going on a blog tour, where she shares one doable item per day on a different blog. Today, it’s our turn here at New VA Advice, and I’m excited to have her!

Alicia Jay is our hostess with the mostess today! It is always a pleasure, and thank you for having us!!

Don’t forget that not only can you learn some neat tricks about list building but you can also win great prizes. You can find all the ways to enter at the bottom of this post.

It’s not just on the blog that you can pick up and earn entries – share about the blog tour on social media and use the hashtag #30dailydoables for more chances to win!

This blog tour is to celebrate the launch of our latest book ‘Build Your List with 30 Daily Doables‘. If you grab the book while the blog tour is on, you receive access to some great extra bonuses – make sure you visit the launch page to get yours!

Doable 14 – Delivering Your Free Gift

How you deliver your free gift is going to depend on what other things you have set up and what the free gift is. If it is a PDF or something similar you can either upload it to your WordPress site, if you have one, or simply add it as an attachment to your follow up email.

If you have a WordPress website it is really easy to upload your file.

It is fine to upload a few things to your website. You can also host it somewhere else like Amazon S3, where you can host podcasts, videos, and other files. Mostly you will pay for the amount of space you are using on your website and if you upload a lot of things to it then you will end up paying for space that you don’t need to be using.

Whether you upload it to your site, your ftp, or other option, you will receive a link that takes people straight to the document. It is this link that you share in your email. You could also put the link on the thank you page that people go straight to after they opt in (if you have one specifically for that free gift).

The link is going to be long and ugly so you might want to shorten the link with a link shortener like bit.ly. If you haven’t used bit.ly before – copy the long link, go to bit.ly and paste it into the bar at the top. Bit.ly will then shorten the link for you. I personally use a plugin called Pretty Links – there is a free and premium version. What I like about Pretty Links is you can create links that start with your URL.

If you have videos and other resources you can do what you will see done with this book. Visit the Resource Page to have a look. People opt in and then are sent a link to a page on my website that I have password protected. In the first follow up email they receive I will share the password with them. On that page you will also see that I have embedded video into the page. I upload it to either Vimeo or YouTube, copy the embed code and paste it into my website. Similarly, for my membership site, I upload it to Amazon S3 and then it plays on a page.

If it is an email course you would have it set up as an autoresponder (follow up) series so the emails automatically go out after they have signed up (more on this in an upcoming doable).